Please note that if you’re not familiar with UCL, the room (Physics A1/A3) where the film screening will take place is not very easy to find…

The entrance on Gower Place can only be accessed if you have a UCL ID badge.

If you are coming from outside UCL, the Physics building can be accessed via the main gate entrance on Gower Street. Enter the main building (North Cloisters http://crf.casa.ucl.ac.uk/screenRoute.aspx?s=386&d=1173&w=False) and turn left. Walk until the end of the corridor (you will end up in front of a place called Housman Room). Look right and you will see another door that will take you into the Physics Department. Take the lift to the third floor where the lecture theatre is located.

It’s a great pleasure to announce the next event of UCL’s Italian Film Club. On Thursday 15th January 2015 at 6pm we will host the first UK screening of Italiani Veri (2013, http://www.italianiverifilm.com/), a documentary film by Marco Raffaini and Giuni Ligabue. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Marco Raffaini.

The film follows the extraordinary success of Italian popular music (musica leggera) in Russia and in the former Soviet Union Republics over the last 50 years. After spending some time in Russia, one quickly realises that Italian popular music is highly and widely appreciated by older and younger generations alike. Italian popular music triggers strong emotions in Russian people, regardless of their social or cultural background.

The film charts this astonishing story through a series of interviews with the main actors of this success (Robertino, Al Bano, Pupo, Toto Cutugno), with the Russian singers who have performed with them (Tat’jana Bulanova, Svetlana Svetikova, Diana Gurtskaja), with representatives of the S. Petersburg’s underground scene (Oleg Garkusha, Viktor Sologub), music critics journalists, University professors and simple Italian music fans.

UCL’s Italian Film Club and Infallible Productions Ltd. are happy to announce a free screening of Leopardi. Il giovane favoloso (2014) that will be followed by a Q&A with director Mario Martone and co-screenwriter Ippolita Di Majo chaired by Dr Beatrice Sica (UCL).

The film screening will take place on Wednesday 19 November at 6pm in the Christopher Ingold XLG1 Chemistry LT (https://goo.gl/maps/53vxS). Please note that although the event is free of charge, ticketing is mandatory through Eventbrite (http://tinyurl.com/nklcv69). The film will be in Italian with English subtitles.

‘Giacomo Leopardi is one of the most important and influential poets in Italian literary history. Director Mario Martone’s film, a scrupulously researched and cinematically staged period biopic, gives us the full sweep of the restless and often terribly unhappy events of Leopardi’s life, set within the turbulent context of early 19th-century Italian society, politics and literature. However this is no academic exercise – it is a powerful, moving search for identity and artistic self-expression by a brilliant misfit, memorably played by Elio Germano (My Brother is an Only Child, As God Commands)’ – Adrian Wootton (CEO Film London).

I hope you are enjoying the summer (that seems to be sunnier and warmer in the UK rather than in Italy for a change…). UCL’s Italian Film Club is currently on holidays but come October, we will begin a new season of screenings and events. Keep an eye on this page for updates and see you soon!